1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure broadly relates to xerographic printers, and more particularly, to an improved diverter assembly for use in xerographic printers and other machines of the like.
2. Description of Related Art
In the field of reprographic machines, it is often necessary to feed along one of two alternative paths a copy sheet leaving the process of a machine, particularly, when the machine can selectively produce simplex (one-sided) and duplex (two-sided) sheets. Simplex sheets may be fed directly to an output tray, whereas the duplex sheets may pass to a sheet feeder which automatically reverses the direction of movement of a simplex sheet and feeds it back into the processor, but inverted, so that the appropriate data can be applied to the second side of the sheet. An example of such is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,359,217 that includes three rollers in frictional or geared contact with each other, to provide two spaced-apart nips, one being an input nip to an associated downstream sheet pocket, and the other being an output nip for extracting each sheet from the pocket.
In addition, known printing systems commonly include two or more media transport paths that divert from one another at certain points and join one another at other points. Thus, a given sheet of media can normally be transported thorough a known printing system along any one of a variety of transport paths. Upon reaching one the diversion points, a sheet of media will not itself select the appropriate media transport path along which movement is desired. As such, mechanical diverters are typically provided immediately in front of the divergent transport path to deflect the sheet long the desired pathway. One example of such a known mechanical diverter includes a gate that extends across the media transport path immediately in front of the diversion point of the transport path. The gate includes an upstream edge and a downstream edge, and is oriented along the transport path such that the downstream edge is pivotally supported at approximately the diversion point of the transport pathway. Thus, the gate creates a diagonally extending blockage across the pathway that is displaceable between first sand second positions corresponding to a sheet media diversion along the first and second transport paths.
These types of diverter gates have drawbacks in view of the advancing performance of printing systems in view of the timing between the passing of a first sheet of media, the movement of the gate to a different position, and the arrival of the second sheet of media. That is, a given printing system will operate using a predetermined inter-document gap (IDG), which generally refers to the spacing between the trailing edge of a first sheet of media and the leading edge of a second sheet of media. However, as the output performance of printing systems continues to be improved, increasingly smaller IDGs are expected to be used.
It is well known that the arrival of a second sheet of media at the diversion point prior to a gate reaching a desired position could result in the leading edge of the sheet of material contacting the upstream edge of the gate and thereby creating a jam or other undesirable condition. It will be recognized then that as increasingly smaller IDGs are used, the time available for the gate to move from one position to the other is reduced. As such, the operating speed of the gate can be increased to achieve the desired reaction time. However, it is expected that a practical performance threshold will be eventually reached, above which only marginal increasing gate speeds will be achievable using practical gate configurations.
Therefore, a diverter assembly is needed that overcomes the foregoing and other problems and difficulties.